


terminus

by morthael



Series: ghost stories [1]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Power Outage, Train Stations, Winter, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4790414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morthael/pseuds/morthael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the boy stares back, lips parting, eyes disbelieving. “You can see me?” he returns, voice barely over a whisper, and yet it rattles Kaworu’s bones, a sound that feels achingly lost, and found again. </p><p>“Yes, of course,” Kaworu says, “Why wouldn’t I?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	terminus

**Author's Note:**

> the end of a railway or other transport route, or a station at such a point; a terminal.

The most interesting places, Kaworu thinks, are those that are in-between. An airport; the suspended point in mid-air after a leap; the silent loom of an empty house, awaiting destruction, or the return of its owners.

Train terminals are by far the most exciting. Terminal – it means the end, yet eventually they all return, metal clicking over metal, pulling in and revisiting each station again, and again, and again. But there’s something in that quiet space, Kaworu finds, the few minutes or hours of silence, when there is no hum of electricity or soft-toned announcer to intrude. When afternoon sunlight arcs through the windows and paints the inside in hushed, warm colours. And when the light fades, leaving nothing but a small afterglow, a dissipating reminder.

Kaworu’s been caught out like this several times; sitting quietly in the carriage, breathing long and even breaths, accompanied by the crinkling sounds of metal slowly cooling down. The doors slide open, and a cleaner enters – his eyes fly wide, and Kaworu blinks slowly at him. His face has been tilted up, catching the last of the sun’s rays.

“Are you lost?” the cleaner asks, and Kaworu smiles.

“No,” he replies, “I was just waiting to return to the city.”

When semester picks up, Kaworu begins taking homework with him. The empty train carriage seems so much livelier, he thinks, with the sound of a pencil scratching over paper. And when the train comes to life again, lights flickering off-and-on, he blinks red eyes, stows away the papers, and sleeps soundly the whole way home.

No one’s asked him where he spends his afternoons, yet.

One day, Kaworu comes across another person sharing in his routine. It’s a new line he hasn’t ridden before, ending somewhere far in the mountains. It’s a winding path, and a long one, and Kaworu feels the press of civilisation leaving as he journeys further out, the cityscape fading behind. Passengers fade, diminishing with each station, until dusk settles in and the train alights and the last breath of humanity gusts through the open doors, the train settling down into silence.

Except for one boy, on the other side of the carriage, huddled to the corner as if pressing himself into the wall. He lets out an expansive sigh as the last passenger leaves the train, opens his eyes, and crooks his legs to his chest.

Minutes pass, Kaworu scarcely breathing, but the other boy doesn’t leave or move. Dark hair brushes his forehead. The train goes silent, the lights putter out. Orange light bathes him in a dusky glow.

Kaworu slowly rises, curiosity rising high in his chest. The boy looks up at the tiny sound, eyes affixing on Kaworu’s as he walks towards him, widening with each muted footstep in his direction. There’s something in his eyes, Kaworu sees, blue as the ocean, and so terrified that Kaworu can’t help but slow down, gentle his steps, curve his lips into a warm smile.

He stops before the boy.

“Hello,” he says. “Are you lost?”

And the boy stares back, lips parting, eyes disbelieving. “You can see me?” he returns, voice barely over a whisper, and yet it rattles Kaworu’s bones, a sound that feels achingly lost, and found again.

“Yes, of course,” Kaworu says, “Why wouldn’t I?”

The boy shrugs helplessly, peering up at Kaworu. “No one else can,” he says, and then falls silent unexpectedly, as if swallowing a sentence. Kaworu sits down next to him, and implores him with his eyes to continue.

The boy holds himself unsteadily, breaking eye contact. “Because I’m a ghost,” he admits in a hushed whisper, eyes darting up and away. Like he’s imparted some terrible secret.

“Oh,” Kaworu says, taken aback. “Oh, that must be terribly lonely for you.” He leans forward a little, his brow creasing, empathy shooting tender pain through his palms. The other boy rears back.

“Are you sure?” he says, eyeing Kaworu’s hands, trembling in his lap. “Ghosts are bad. Ghosts are selfish, too. And they’re no good at anything, really. There isn’t – there’s not that much for them to be lonely about.”

“Do you know many ghosts?” Kaworu breathes, and the boy’s eyelashes flutter uncomfortably.

“No,” he says, and the admission seems to bare his soul.

*

Kaworu learns the boy’s name – Ikari Shinji – and it rolls off his tongue pebble-smooth. His schoolbag lays on the floor, forgotten. “I’m Nagisa Kaworu,” he says, smiling, and it occurs to him that Shinji still seems to be in a daze, flickering unbelievably thin, dust motes in the air blending right through. “Hey, are you alright?”

Shinji lifts his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he says miserably. “I don’t get it. How can you talk to me so calmly? I’m not real. Ghosts aren’t supposed to exist.”

Kaworu frowns. “But of course you are real,” he replies softly. “I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?”

The last of the sun slips behind the mountain, and the carriage is lit by a cooler, darker light. It filters through the windows bluely, and Shinji flinches when it hits his face. Like this, he looks less solid, more like a projection and less like a boy. Kaworu lifts a hand slowly, reaching out, fingers curled to touch fleetingly. It passes through Shinji’s cheek, and the boy blinks reflexively, draws back.

“Ah,” Kaworu says, just a slight puff of air. His fingers tingle, not unpleasantly, from where they brushed through Shinji’s skin, but the other boy still looks frightened, though, so –

“Do you always catch this train, Shinji-kun?”

Shinji swallows nervously; Kaworu follows the movement of his throat. He looks like moonlight could pass through him, light him up from within, glowing with pale light. Nervously, he fidgets with his hands; Kaworu wishes he could take one of them, hold them and warm him up.

“I haven’t left for as long as I can remember,” Shinji finally says, and his hand has strayed up to his face, a finger unconsciously tracing circles on his cheek. Kaworu blinks.

“But there’s so much to see,” he says, not understanding. “Humanity’s beating heart exists just outside here…”

“I’m sorry,” Shinji says, and he seems to curl in on himself. Kaworu falters. “I tell myself, maybe I should leave…but the train is always stuck in between here, just like me.” His finger traces a well-worn line through the seat. “It would be scary to leave. What if I just stopped…existing?”

Kaworu reaches out again, this time to rest his hand atop Shinji’s knee, still drawn up against his chest. It’s a facsimile of a movement designed to comfort, yet Shinji still stares in a mixture of fascination and envy, and falteringly ghosts his fingers against Kaworu’s.

“I think one can continue to exist as long as one has the will to continue doing so,” Kaworu says quietly. “I think that if you believe, ‘I am worth living in this world’, then there is no force on this earth that could stop you.” He smiles, shifts closer, nudges his shoulder towards Shinji. “And I certainly believe you are worth it.”

Shinji reddens, as much as almost-translucent skin can, and looks away. “I don’t know how you managed to say everything like that,” he murmurs. “About me, I mean. Like you can see right into my mind, it’s like you know everything.”

Another gentle smile arches Kaworu’s lips. “It must be lonely like this,” he says. “So I suppose I must have been born to meet you.”

*

Kaworu talks himself into an almost sleepy state before the lights flick back on, the train comes back to life. It’s completely dark out now, wind whistling around the mountain, and Kaworu can’t help but be glad for the airtight windows; it’s in the middle of winter, and the wind, especially so high up, is bitterly cold. When he looks to Shinji, the boy almost looks sad the train is preparing to leave the terminal again; he looks washed out in the watery light.

“Will you come, again?” Shinji asks, as the first passenger steps aboard. His eyes are lit up with a sort of tentative hope, the kind that tries to dim itself to avoid being hurt, and Kaworu gazes back, trying to load as much care and empathy into a single look as possible.

“Of course I will,” he says strongly, heedless of the odd look he receives from the other passenger, and Shinji melts back against the wall with something akin to sharp relief relaxing the drawn features of his face. Kaworu would like strongly to ease the scrunched up brow from Shinji’s face; being unable to touch, however, he merely lays his hand palm up on the seat, smiling at the light tickle as Shinji joins him.

*

Kaworu returns again and again afterwards, taking the afternoon line to the mountains, and each time when the train depletes enough, he joins Shinji on the same seat, and it’s enough to communicate wordlessly, in small glances and gestures, until the train reaches the terminal. Sometimes he does his homework, remembering there is a life beyond wandering in-between places, and Shinji is oddly helpful for a ghost who spends all of his time aboard a continually looping train.

“Why do you like being here so much?” Shinji asks one day. Kaworu supposes he looks particularly pleasant that day, smiling all about the compartment, rolling along an abandoned seat as the sun tracks its way through the late afternoon sky.

Kaworu rolls upright, patting his too-messy hair back down from where it’s escaped through during his jaunt. “It’s very quiet,” he says, and frowns. It doesn’t quite cover the breadth of his feeling; he tries again. “I like it. It’s isolated, but…”

He laughs a little, and is pleased to see a small answering smile on Shinji’s face. “I’m not doing a very good job of explaining, am I,” he says ruefully. “I like it best when it’s just still. It’s almost like you can breathe a bit, like the world outside stops and there is nothing except this moment, where nothing bothers you and you can leave everything behind…”

“Is everything alright?” Shinji asks very softly, and Kaworu goes still.

“Yes…” Kaworu blinks, and wonders why the word rings a little hollow. “Well, I suppose I am content, at least…”

Shinji reaches out, his fingers stopping just shy of Kaworu’s cheek, so close, so achingly close that it’s all Kaworu can do not to lean in, and clasp the hand between his. He does it anyway, feels the faintest whisper of touch over his face.

“Thank you, Shinji,” he murmurs.

“I wish I could help more.” Shinji’s voice is a small sigh, and Kaworu can’t help but smile to that.

“You help more than you know,” he says.

*

Shinji is closer than ever, after that day, sitting so close their knees overlap, holding Kaworu’s hand as best he can with fingers loose as water. Kaworu could swear he’s getting firmer, colour spreading to his face, more vivid than ever before. He’s brightened, smiles more often, and Kaworu, too, finds himself buoyed higher – a feeling of utter contentment that settles like a warm blanket over his heart.

It’s only natural that he says it, then, an understated declaration while he doodles on his schoolbooks.

“I love you,” Kaworu says amiably, and only pauses when he hears a sharp inhalation. Shinji stares at him incredulously; he only smiles back serenely, and goes back to his drawing.

“How – how can you tell?” Shinji asks after a long silence, and each word sounds awkward and out of place in the little carriage. “I mean – well, I mean, I don’t think I’m really worth – ”

“Shinji-kun,” Kaworu cuts him off in the sweetest way possible, gazing gently across the seat to the stuttering boy. “One day, you just decide that they’re worth it, and then, they’re yours to love. So, I love you.”

There must be a limit to how red a ghost can flush, Kaworu muses, but he hopes there really isn’t as he traces a line on Shinji’s warm skin.

*

The next day is one of the coldest in history; Kaworu shivers his way through school even wearing his extra layers, and on returning home is dismayed to see the power out, a city-wide failure. Through rapidly dimming sunlight he notes that trains out of the city aren’t running. A light fall of snow has him hurriedly escaping indoors.

It’s no better inside – the heating has been knocked out by the blackout, and Kaworu gropes desperately in his sock drawer for another pair, woolly and mismatched. He lunges for bed as soon as he’s able – he’s never been built for winter, never taken well to cold, and prays for the power to return.

In between weary bouts of fitful sleep, Kaworu becomes aware of another set of breathing in his room, the quiet and unassuming kind. Waking fully, he rises from his cocoon to grin unrestrainedly at the boy standing unsurely by his door, wringing his hands together.

“Shinji,” he breathes when he’s able to speak, when his cheeks unfreeze themselves from the laughter bubbling from his chest.

“There was a snow-in at the mountain,” Shinji explains, still looking a little lost outside of his familiar surroundings. Kaworu waves him closer, and he steps forward slowly. “I – I didn’t want to wait, and the train wasn’t moving, so I left – is this…okay?”

Shinji still looks hesitant, so Kaworu bravely confronts the cold in order to properly reassure him; he flings aside the blankets, and before he regrets it, runs to Shinji and flings his arms around him.

He falls through, of course, and Shinji twists around to try and catch him; and that fails too, and then Kaworu is moaning on the ground while Shinji hovers anxiously.

“I love you, Shinji,” Kaworu says from where his face is pressed to the floorboards.

“Please, get back into bed,” Shinji flutters nervously above him, making small shooing gestures towards the bed. Kaworu gladly complies, crawling underneath the sheets with great enthusiasm, and then lifting the covers up after him.

“Come on, isn’t it cold for you?” he urges Shinji, taking in his plain shirt and trousers. Shinji hesitates, but then joins him, his head barely denting the pillow.

“I don’t really feel it,” he says. “As long as I remember, I haven’t ever felt cold…”

Then, he swallows back a tiny laugh, finally taking in Kaworu’s tousled hair, mussed from continuous bed-rolling. “Your hair is so bad…” he says, a hand pushing through the covers to pat the wild locks down. There’s no change, of course, and Shinji’s smile dims a little.

“I wish I could be realer,” he says, returning his hand to his chest, tucked away. “So I could touch you.”

Kaworu pulls his body flush against Shinji’s as a small, ghost-white tear tracks down his face; he touches a tender half-touch to Shinji’s face. “You are real enough to me,” Kaworu says, and pulls his face close. Shinji’s eyes widen first in confusion, then panicked recognition, as Kaworu slides his lips against his, a feather-light touch that shouldn’t feel as warm as it does; Kaworu swears he can feel the light passage of air as Shinji breathes shakily.

“Shinji-kun,” Kaworu whispers, pressing scrupulously gentle kisses everywhere, and then Shinji is on top of him, the line where they almost touch impossibly warm. He trails his fingers up Kaworu’s chest, to his throat, cradling his neck gently as he brushes his lips there as well. Kaworu’s breath leaves him in a gasping torrent, every touch of Shinji’s lips to his throat a spark of fire.

“Shinji,” he chokes out, and Shinji traces his fingers softly over his kisses, pulling back minutely.

“Sorry,” Shinji says, looking like he wants to completely draw back, but Kaworu stops him, touching his fingers first to his lips, then his neck.

“It’s so warm, where you kissed me,” he murmurs, his voice tinged with wonder. “You…you’re so _warm._ ”

Shinji’s uncertain look is replaced by one of certain calculation. He places a palm to Kaworu’s cheek, and Kaworu turns towards it, eyes fluttering shut. “Kaworu, you’re cold, aren’t you?” he asks lowly, and Kaworu beams back, a beatific, radiant smile.

“I am _freezing_ , Shinji,” he whispers back. “I could really do with something warm.”

Shinji slides down onto the bed, trying to find a way to wrap his arms around Kaworu that isn’t awkward. He settles for snuggling as close as he can, and Kaworu tugs the bedcovers tighter over the both of them.

*

In the morning, Kaworu is awoken by a groggy looking Shinji, black hair a dishevelled halo around his face. He looks blearily around the room, then swings his confused gaze back.

“It’s so cold, Kaworu,” Shinji says.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> happy 15th birthday to our lord and saviour kaworu nagisa


End file.
